UW-Green Bay is an underappreciated asset in the community

The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, elected officials and northeastern Wisconsin businesses have joined forces to push for the creation of an engineering degree program as part of a focus on STEM innovation. Oct. 6, 2017.
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The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay campus.(Photo: File/Press-Gazette Media)Buy Photo

After having retired from 40 years of practicing law, I was offered the opportunity in the summer of 2015 to serve as associate chancellor for external affairs and chief of staff for Chancellor Gary L. Miller of the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

I enthusiastically accepted the chancellor’s offer because I was not an educator and I was eager for a new adventure. I had always respected UWGB from a distance and believed that it was a valuable community asset. My two years at UWGB taught me far more than I anticipated and I valued UWGB two years later — more than I had in 2015 when I began. These are the lessons I learned:

For those of us fortunate enough to have “gone to college,” it is easy to look back through a somewhat fuzzy filter and remember the experience as a light-hearted, fun-filled period of our youth. While today’s college students undoubtedly have some fun, for most it is a demanding, strenuous growth experience. Serious deadlines, new intellectual demands, tough competition.

Pfeifer(Photo: Courtesy of Ronald Pfeifer)

A significant number of today’s college students are exploring their gender/sexual identities as part of their college experience. Campus groups exist which welcome these students. Many of them believe they are victims of discrimination and rude treatment. If college is a time for “finding one’s self,” their search is a legitimate part of that experience and process.

I failed to grasp what a culture shock it can be for minority students to arrive at a campus like UWGB where virtually everyone is white. For some minority students, it’s truly the first continual exposure they’ve had to Caucasians. It’s hard to grasp without experiencing it. Fortunately, there is a large group of individuals on the UWGB campus who are dedicated to facilitating the transition; as well, a significant number of individuals at UWGB have dedicated themselves to improving the chances of success for students whose backgrounds may not have totally prepared them for the college experience. Such efforts are truly heroic much to be applauded. It’s accurate to say that a poor start in one’s first year of college is difficult to overcome.

When my generation attended college, our professors were “set apart” from us; they were, to some degree, unapproachable and distant. They were, after all, the “authorities” and we were their students. Not today. At least not today at UWGB. The vast majority of professors at UWGB allow their students to know them as real people, not just as authoritarian sources of knowledge.

The quality of teaching at UWGB is amazing. Time after time, I wished that I could attend classes taught by instructors I had come to know during my time on campus. Their command of the subjects was often dazzling to me and it was available to students who wanted to benefit from it.

The performing arts experiences at UWGB are under-valued and under-attended. I was always impressed by the quality of musical and dramatic productions by students and faculty at UWGB — many of which went largely unnoticed by the public. Many were cost-free or nearly so.

Lazy state employees? I didn’t find them. The people with whom I interacted were incredibly dedicated to the students at UWGB and worked tirelessly for their benefit.

Division I athletes are under-appreciated. Of course, players on the UWGB basketball teams receive nice newspaper coverage and, to some degree, are granted “celebrity status,” but the average fan cannot begin to know how dedicated such a student-athlete must be. Only the games are visible. What we don’t see are the long, demanding practices, the missed classes due to road games, civic demands in a community like Green Bay and so on. Those students who choose that life earn their scholarships and more often than not are better students than those in the general student population.

Students with real financial need? Of course. Many students work hard at part-time jobs and a surprising number are unable to afford sufficient clothing a college student should possess. That is why efforts on the UWGB campus to make second-hand clothing (mostly donated by members of the surrounding public) available at no cost are so impressive and so valuable. There is also a food pantry of donated items that less fortunate students regularly take advantage of. I salute those individuals who keep those efforts alive.

Every dollar counts. State universities simply don’t receive the amount of state support they did when I was a student. As a result, private donations are all the more valuable and it’s accurate to say that every single dollar matters. I routinely encountered wonderful opportunities that had to be ignored because we simply didn’t have the money.

Transformation? You bet. Freshmen show up at UWGB as kids, largely untested scholastically, and graduate as vastly more sophisticated near-adults, loaded with knowledge they didn’t previously possess, and they are ready to take on the world. The career services available to UWGB students are remarkable and those in charge actually teach students, among other things, the proper way to perform in a job interview. I often saw professors working diligently, going beyond what was required, on letters of recommendation for their students who were seeking to be admitted to graduate or law school.

In the end, UWGB is an enormous community asset which, if anything, is more valuable than most Green Bay citizens understand. It is largely composed of hard-working people who choose to work there for the best of all reasons: the students!

Ronald T. Pfeifer is a former associate chancellor for external affairs and chief of the chancellor's staff at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.